The invention relates to electronic devices, and more particularly to wireless communication.
Demand for wireless information services via cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) is rapidly growing, and techniques and protocols for wireline Internet access have problems such as the delay between requests for web pages. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) attempts to overcome this web page delay problem by transmitting a group of web pages as a deck of cards with each card corresponding to a page of structured content and navigation specifications. Each WAP card has combined the data to be displayed with formatting instructions used in controlling the display of the data and thus causing larger than necessary data downloads for a fixed display format.
However, there are three constraints that do not allow high speed, content rich Internet surfing using these mobile devices: 1) The cost of downloading large amounts of information on a cellular phone because of the cellular air time expense. 2) Small screen size. 3) Battery power implies low power consumption.
Internet access at most homes is currently limited to 56 kbps over phone lines. One of the applications for Bluetooth™ wireless local area network (LAN) at home is wireless Internet access. The current Bluetooth gross (including overhead) speed of a 1 Mbps channel rate suffices for a 56 kbps wireline (phone line) connection at home providing Internet access for PDA type devices. And the three Internet surfing constraints noted for cellular phones are overcome with wireline to Bluetooth home LAN: there is no air time charge, and the localization to the home allows heavier devices with larger screens and easier battery recharge for higher power consumption.
Notebook computers provide large screens and may have built in 802.11 standard wireless for networking with other computers at 11–22 Mbps, but at high cost.